For once, Donald Trump has a point. “We can’t let a madman with nuclear weapons let on the loose like that,” he told Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte, according to the transcript from their bizarre phone conversation that was leaked to The Intercept in May.

The madman the U.S. president was referring to, of course, was North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un. The madman the rest of us should be worried about, however, is Trump himself, who — lest we forget — has the sole, exclusive and unrestricted power to launch almost 1,000 nuclear warheads in a matter of minutes, should he so wish.

Most nonproliferation experts — as well as former President Jimmy Carter and a number of former Pentagon and State Department officials, both Republican and Democrat — agree that the brutal and murderous Kim, for all his bluster, is not irrational or suicidal, but bent on preserving his regime and preventing a U.S. attack. Nuclear weapons are a defensive, not an offensive, tool for the North Korean leadership — which, as Bill Clinton’s defense secretary William Perry observed on Fox News in April, may be “ruthless and … reckless” but “they are not crazy.”

Got that? Kim is bad, not mad.

The same cannot be said of The Donald. Think I’m being unfair? In February, a group of psychiatrists, psychologists and social workers wrote to the New York Times “that the grave emotional instability indicated by Mr. Trump’s speech and actions makes him incapable of serving safely as president.” In April, another group of mental health experts told a conference at Yale University’s School of Medicine that Trump was “paranoid” and “delusional” and referred to the president’s “dangerous mental illness.”

Is it any wonder then that so many recentreports suggest that South Koreans are more worried about Trump than they are about the threat posed by their hostile and paranoid neighbor?

People watch a broadcast displaying U.S. President Donald Trump on a screen at a train station in Seoul, South Korea, Wednesday, Aug. 9, 2017.

Photo: Lee Jin-man/AP

Consider Trump’s reaction this week to a confidential U.S. intelligence assessment — leaked to the Washington Post — that the DPRK is now able to construct a nuclear warhead small enough to fit inside its missiles. “North Korea best not make any more threats to the United States,” the president declaimed, in response to a reporter’s question at his Bedminster Golf Club on Tuesday. “They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen. He has been very threatening beyond a normal state. And as I said, they will be met with fire, fury and frankly power the likes of which this world has never seen before.”

How is this not an unhinged response from the so-called Leader of the Free World? In May, he said he would be “honored” to meet with Kim and praised him as a “pretty smart cookie.” In August, he took a break from his golfing vacation to casually threaten nuclear annihilation of Kim’s country (not even on the basis of any aggression by the DPRK, incidentally, but only their “threats”).

Does Trump understand the difference between escalating and de-escalating a nuclear crisis? Listen to Republican Senator John McCain, who has never met a “rogue nation” he did not want to bomb, invade or occupy. “I take exception to the president’s words,” McCain said on Tuesday, adding: “That kind of rhetoric, I’m not sure how it helps.”

I mean, just how crazy do you have to be to advocate a preemptive nuclear strike that even McCain cannot get behind?

Trump has form, though, when it comes to loose talk about nukes. During the presidential campaign, in August 2016, MSNBC host and ex-Republican congressman Joe Scarborough revealed that Trump, over the course of an hour-long briefing with a senior foreign policy adviser, had asked three times about the use of nuclear weapons. At one point during the meeting, according to Scarborough, the then-GOP presidential candidate asked his adviser, “If we had them, why can’t we use them?”

Coverage of an ICBM missile test is displayed on a screen in a public square in Pyongyang on July 29, 2017. Kim Jong-un boasted of North Korea’s ability to strike any target in the U.S. after an ICBM test that weapons experts said could even bring New York into range.

Photo: Kim Won-Jin/AFP/Getty Images

To be so blasé, enthusiastic even, about the deployment of the ultimate weapon of mass destruction is a stark indicator of Trump’s childishness, ignorance, belligerence, and, yes, derangement. Here is a president who is impulsive, erratic, unstable; whose entire life and career have been defined by a complete lack of empathy. Remember his strategy for defeating ISIS? “Bomb the shit out of ’em” and “take out their families.”

So do you think civilian casualties were on his mind when he issued his “fire and fury” warning? Come. Off. It.

Listen to McCain’s fellow Republican super-hawk Senator Lindsay Graham. “If there’s going to be a war to stop [Kim], it will be over there,” Graham told NBC’s Matt Lauer last week, recounting a recent conversation he had with the president. “If thousands die, they’re going to die over there. They’re not going to die over here — and he’s told me that to my face.”

“This is madness,” Kingston Reif, a nuclear disarmament specialist at the Arms Control Association, tweeted in response to Graham’s re-telling of Trump’s remarks. “Unhinged madness.”

Remember that 72 years ago today, the United States dropped the second atomic bomb on Japan, killing around 39,000 people in Nagasaki. Three days earlier, the first A-bomb killed around 66,000 people in Hiroshima. But a nuclear war on the Korean peninsula would make those strikes on Hiroshima and Nagasaki look like pinpricks. Experts say even a conventional war between the U.S. and the DPRK could kill more than 1 million people; a nuclear exchange, therefore, might result in tens of millions of casualties. Trump’s national security adviser, H.R. McMaster, has admitted that such a preemptive strike by the U.S. would be a “humanitarian catastrophe.”

Does the president care? Graham doesn’t seem to think so. Trump’s former ghostwriter Tony Schwartz, who spent 18 months in his company while working on The Art of the Deal, has called the president a “sociopath.” In fact, one quote more than any other stood out from Schwartz’s much-discussed interview with the New Yorker in July 2016 and, perhaps, should keep us all awake at night. “I genuinely believe that if Trump wins and gets the nuclear codes,” said Schwartz, “there is an excellent possibility it will lead to the end of civilization.”

We can’t say we weren’t warned.

Top photo: People wave banners and shout slogans as they attend a rally in support of North Korea’s stance against the U.S., on Kim Il-sung Square in Pyongyang on August 9, 2017.

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From the perspective of soundness of argument, this is a terrible article. Assessing whether Kim is a “rational actor” in the way the term is used within international relations/game theory means something very different than an assessment of Trump’s “sanity” from the a psychological/psychiatric point of view. The latter kind of assessment has been made based on the plethora of data that we have about Trump’s behavior at a level far more granular and personal than policy decisions about weapons deployment. We simply don’t have this quantity of information about Kim.

I actually completely agree that Trump is not mentally fit to be president, but articles which try to prove this point through fallacious reasoning and false equivalencies only serve to undermine the argument, as those who disagree with the takeaway (that Trump is unfit) can easily point to the specious reasoning to discredit the conclusion.

Very unfortunate that The Intercept will allow this kind of clickbait story to be published.

This is an article is based entirely on opinion, not fact. North Korea bans any negative, sarcastic, or inflammatory speech directed towards the country or its’ leader. Imagine if you had the same views about Kim as you do Trump! Your head would be gone before you could say ‘Not my President’. Along with prohibiting free speech, the nation allows a grand total of twenty-eight approved hairstyles that a citizen can sport. An average North Korean survives on around 10 ounces of food supplied by the government each day. If you accidentally let your hair grow too long, all of this is punishable by death and three generations of prison sentences for you, your children and your grandmother (that is, if you aren’t dead yet). Kim Jong Un? Mentally sound? Consider very carefully what you’re implying.

It’s a fine article, but for me it amounts to information so obvious that I have difficulty believing how many people don’t understand this.

Donald Trump is an insane, would-be dictator who has no regard for anyone but himself. I have zero doubt that he will start World War III if he feels like it will profit him in any way… or simply in a fit of pique.

The hell of this is that both sides have been calling the other side’s leaders insane for decades now. When we label Trump as insane, it’s easily disregarded as partisan politics. But for once, “insane” really does mean mentally ill, emotionally unstable, and stark, raving mad.

Trump is doing all the right things in a difficult if not impossible situation. Can you imagine this crazy guy in NK (not Trump) with an arsenal of nuclear ICBMs which could destroy many US. cities. Their guy and his weapons need to be taken out now before it is too late.

Next they’ll telll you that Kim Jong-Un then ate his uncle’s entrails after dousing them with Heinz catsup and adding a sprig of cilantro. Of course, the US MSM eats that up and passes it on to their more credulous readership.

Your “headline” shows just who is “mental” as in you Mr. Hasan….I understand that “hate Trumpers” are so convinced that POTUS should not be in office that they salivate and write untruths. As in all things, history will provide the truth and not the hatemongers of today.

Get a grip. Nobody, not even Trump, wants to pull this trigger. NK has been useful to China for hectoring the US but if they can really deliver a nuke to Chicago they have out lived their usefulness and China knows it. One misstep here and the peninsula will become a radioactive parking lot and China will get most of the blame, hundreds of thousands of NK refugees, leading to an internal uprising and become surrounded by nuclear armed US allies. Time for Xi to come to his senses and stop playing this stupid game.

Mehdi, when writing on nuclear weapons and the Korean peninsula, it might be wise to provide non-expert readers with a timeline showing significant events. Here one could name the fact that the DPRK acceded to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in 1985 and that discussions between the governments of the US and the DPRK began in October 1994 during the Clinton administration (the so-called Agreed Framework), which looked as they might provide a basis for closer relations and a replacement of the Armistice Agreement of 27 July 1953 by a peace treaty between the two countries. Alas, George Walker Bush took it upon himself to declare on 29 January 2002 that the DPRK was a member of a so-called «axis of evil» and started reneging on parts of the Agreed Framework of vital interest to the DPRK, while threatening another member of that so-called «axis», Iraq, with invasion and war (which he later carried out, with results with which many of your readers will be familiar). As a result of these moves, the DPRK withdrew from the NPT in January 2003 and began devoting more resources to both nuclear-weapons and missile research….

I should not like to be tasked with trying to convince Mr Kim, who must be acutely aware of the fate of, e g, Saddam Hussein Abed al-Majid al-Tikriti or Muammar Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi, that nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them are not needed to deter a US attack on his country (which, let it be remembered, suffered such an attack some six decades ago, an attack that Curtis Emerson LeMay estimated killed some 20 % of the country’s civilian population)….

As a professional, I find the notion of psychiatric diagnosis at a distance distasteful, so I shall not here comment on who the «mad» party may be in the US-DPRK duo, but to my mind, there’s little doubt as to who the «bad» party is in this particular interchange….

The problem is that a group of relatively secretive, very rich people want to usher in a NWO. For it to succeed they need to get their one-world-bank in place and Kim is having none of it, same as Syria and look at the state of that country! My guess is that Trump will endeavour to place more sanctions on NK until Kim has no choice BUT to retaliate. He knows it’s suicide for his country but what can he do? Imagine someone walking into your home and telling you that from now on you can’t have milk, bread, beans, coffee, nor can you use the kitchen except for 15 minutes out of each day, how long would it be before you are waving a carving knife at their throat?

Mehdi, I have a bone to pick with your title and your sentiment. I agree that KJU is not a koo koo. What indication or proof do you have that our president is? They both have their agendas. Yes, KJU want to stay king of the land. What does President Trump want that indicates he is crazy? Can’t be the rhetoric, otherwise, they’d both be nutes. Can’t be the threats, they seemed pretty dangerous coming form both directions. So, why is our president (and I’m no fan) the crazy one? Don’t tell me it is our history versus theirs, our warring, the bombing of the North, under people other than the current one, or the pass your give three generations of the Kim regime. If so, once again, they are both diabolically insane. You write better stuff than this..

Aren’t these the same psychologists that recommended water boarding and other ghastly things that went on during W’s time? And as for these social workers, I wonder what their credentials are to diagnose mental problems from a distance.

As for the psychiatrists, did they suddenly develop superpowers to glean into a person’s character just by watching tv or reading a few tweets? So if they called you mental by just looking at your picture, or reading your fallacious arguments, will you check yourself into an asylum because you use them to support your arguments?

Finally, consider the source, New York Times. They are now publishing retractions faster than they publish news.

All this is not to say Trump may be insane. You should read Greenwald’s arguments from his Salon days to see how one makes an argument.

You need to be careful in distinguishing between psychologists and psychiatrists. The latter are physicians, and are bound by the Hippocratic Oath, while psychologists are not. That’s why the scumbags of the IC and DoD primarily use psychologists to assist them torture people.

I am just a country physicist myself, and don’t know whether or not Trump is mentally ill, clinically. But he reminds me a lot of the playground bullies who used to beat up on nerdy kids like me in the 4th grade. And his rhetoric reminds me of them also.

To be fair, the word “reckless” means a person who acts “without thinking or caring about the consequences of an action”. I don’t think we should worry less about NK simply because, in the words of one intelligence official, the NK leadership is “not crazy”.

“The madman the U.S. president was referring to, of course, was North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un. The madman the rest of us should be worried about, however, is Trump himself…”?
“Kim is bad, not mad.”?
I’m guessing you don’t live in Seoul, close to the North Korean border?
Of course Trump is a loose cannon and unfit for office and demeanings his office. But when you start deflecting criticism from a Stalinist dictator perhaps you should take a look at the intellectual honesty of your argument.

First, North Korea’s deterrent is adequate, especially when you consider that war with DPRK will inevitably draw in China and Russia. The US isn’t ready for World War III.

Second, this month’s resolution, UNSC Res. 2371 (2017), is a big step forward. The UNSC is seized of the matter. That means nobody makes a move without UN authorization. The resolution specifically excludes authorization for use or threat of force because it’s based on Article 41, which provides for measures not involving use of force. This also precludes illegal unilateral sanctions by the US government. The resolution calls the Joint Statement of 19 September 2005 a commitment of the United States to DPRK’s sovereignty and peaceful coexistence. That makes it a matter of conventional international law that reinforces the Charter’s prohibition on use or threat of force.

After manifest NATO breaches of Articles 46, 47, and 48 in Libya, Russia and China are poised to respond to any sign of the US overstepping the resolution’s scope. The US government got routed in ICJ cases including the Oil Platforms and Aerial Incident cases, Libyan Arab Jamahiriya v. United States of America, and Nicaragua v. United States of America. US armed attack by pretext or mishap risks setting further precedent in internationl case law establishing US responsibility for unnecessary or disproportionate force, and might further articulate the crime of aggression.

Both further measures and the current sanctions are under the supervision of the 15 current UNSC members, a Committee established by the prior Resolution 1718 (2006). UNSC members currently include Bolivia, Egypt, Ethiopia, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, Senegal, Sweden, Ukraine, Uruguay along with the P-5. So the Committee includes two legalist Latin American states, five G-77 members, not counting China, and four SCO members. The most servile US satellite on the UNSC, Japan, has an overwhelming stake in averting war. So the composition of the UNSC favors peaceful resolution. It’s a fairly effective check on US armed attack.

They are firm believers in the lessor of two (2) evils theory, with emphasis on TWO. If it was Hitler versus Stalin, with Jesus Christ running as a Green, Hitler would win narrowly, and the Stalin supporters would blame the Greens for his loss.

IMO, in the actual 2016 election, Clinton. The reasons: Clinton represents continuity and predictability, maintaining the status quo. The CIA is still not over its anger at losing all those juicy listening posts in Iran; they and the NSA are itching to help their pals from Mossad take the Iranians down. What about the Liberty, you ask? Oh those guys were mostly squids, the spooks among them mostly from the NSG. And besides, they were all expendable.

If your question was in regard to the hypothetical example I gave, it is impossible to answer, because all three of the individuals in that example are dead. I guess you don’t understand falsifiability, and that you missed the central point of my post, which was that 90% of the Americun sheeple are too dumb to realize that there are more choices available to them than the two candidates of the Party.

Of course my question was in regard to your hypothetical example you gave. If you believe the Deep State was involved in the election with any of the candidates (and I havent read your views on this to know how beyond you feel they supported Hillary or who you think the Deep State is) then you would have been able to include them in that example you came up with.

As far as a third party choices, I’ve never seen third party choice for any local elections. Have you?

And anyway with the way things are currently like the soon to be complete control the Republicans or the far right has over this country and the unrestricted and often from unknown sources of money in politics, a third party could be just as easily hijacked as any party or trending sentiments and complaints could.
Calling for what amounts to a powerless easily used third party for pres to fix it all is not a valiant solution, its just a name change.

Did you miss the beginning of this paragraph from the article?: “Consider Trump’s reaction THIS WEEK.” Trump provides data every day that he’s bat $hit crazy. — Perhaps you’re being deliberately obtuse?

*”Fire and Fury” (like the world has never seen before!) sounds more like linguistic brimstone spouted by some of Trump’s more devout advisors – Vice Preacher Pence perhaps?

In any case ~ not to diminish the seriousness of the situation (Kim Jong un may be crazy too!) ~ I don’t believe a word that comes out of Trump’s mouth. .. about anything of any consequence Mr. Hasan. Sad, but true.

Deep state knows that as soon as US politicians start an impeachment procedure , the last defence of Trump will be to launch a nuclear war. The world better hope no proof of campaign collusion will emerge….

I’ve been saying it for years, and it is absolutely true here, too. The Republicans will invite war every time there is a personal issue that is haunting their President – every time. Anything to make it seem like it’s a bad idea to replace the thug – the idiot at the wheel. They will do anything it takes. They believe Americans will fall for the idea that it is bad to change power when in the middle of a war. HA. It was bad to elect this fool in the first place, but our stupid people of the Electoral College decided to take that risk anyway. All fools.

And that makes them different from the democrats how, exactly?
BTW, it makes no sense blaming the Electoral College for doing what they were constitutionally bound to do. The more meaningful topic for discussion is the reason why 90% of those who voted deluded themselves into voting for Tweedle Dee or Tweedle Dum, when there were alternatives. It is that 90% who are the true fools, and who have made H.L. Mencken’s prediction come true.

Donald trump is proving what is wrong with the politics of the world on a daily basis…
Money talks and bullshit walks – – all of politics is bought and paid for. On a worldwide basis it is not about the people or the betterment of mankind – – pure greed and the almighty dollar (yen- kopeck- or whatever currency it used)…..WE need to get the money and perpetual politicians around the world out of politics….. running us into our graves

The argument that Kim Jong Un is a tyrant and that his regime has a terrible human rights record does nothing to justify incinerating that country, not only because that in itself would be a war crime on an unprecedented scale but also because it is inconsistent with US policy, which tolerates unspeakably evil people if they are our “friends”.

On the other hand, the nuclear winter following an all-out thermonuclear weapons exchange (likely to be triggered by a unilateral attack on NK by the US) would largely reverse the effects of anthropogenic climate change. Another benefit is that the human population would be restored to a sustainable level. To increase the probability of these salubrious outcomes, Trump should also attack China and Russia.

I’m no nuclear expert, but I think the human toll is the point here…we (and most notably Russia) tested bombs WAY more powerful than what is used today, no nuclear winter occurred. Barring a end of the world type nuclear exchange between superpowers, it would be the poor souls lost to such a horrific scenario. No need to be facetious dude….

The possibility I allude to in my post is that of the Russians and Chinese being drawn in if the US attacks North Korea. China was drawn in to the Korean War for fear that the US or a client state would be installed on its border should North Korea be defeated, and Russia was the original ally of North Korea. Can we be certain that either the Russians or Chinese would not come in on North Korea’s side if we attack? I for one don’t want to find out, but the possibility is there, and nobody should discount it.

China state-controlled paper Global Times has said that if DPRK attacks US first, China would stay neutral; but if US/ROK attack first China will “block it” (whatever that means) and take the DPRK side.

So yeah, the nuclear winter is a possibility. Unfortunately, although it may produce a healthy reduction in the numbers of humans, rats, mosquitos and cockroaches on the planet those hardy species will surely survive, while thousands or millions of other valuable, beautiful and vulnerable ones are likely to become extinct.

Is it mandatory for every U.S. writer to let us know who ‘bad’ or ‘ruthless’ leaders and cultures are they we have designated our enemy (of the day, for they change when convenient)? Given America’s past history of violence, military, social, economic and political, towards other countries in order to preserve our Empire, intelligent writers should show a bit of humility and maturity. Unfortunately, they do not. More unfurtunate, this trait is omnipresent in the America public, its institutions, and in hte political elite.

There are many parallels between Trump and Kim. Both are living in their own world. Both don’t like dissent and contradiction. But while the world objects Trump’s views all the time – they are challenged by the press, MPs, even his own administration – no-one is allowed to contradict Kim Jong-un. Imagine what this does to your mind, when everyone around you tells you all the time how great you are, how wise, how magnificent and even your greatest bullshit gets praised. Dissenters are killed. That’s the reality of Kim and this makes him dangerous. Remember Hitler: he fought on his war for years, even though it became quite clear that there is no chance to win it. He lost from 1943 on nearly every battle, but still could not accept reality. To avoid acceptance of the saddening truth he finally killed himself.

In going through the “beige threads” here, I see no YouTube video… or any other video!… in support of this, that– and of course!– the other! Wuz up with that?… videos are people too! Why not SPICE UP this site… like many other sites are doing!… and give what the future demands: REAL TIME, 3D, DYNAMIC INTERACTION! And I’m not referring to links to SOMEONE ELSE’S “colorful threads”!
.
Please!… no emails!

Whether or not North Korea does in fact have long-range nuclear capability, what matters is that the US war machine wants you to think that it does right now. A narrative is being constructed, and our focus should be on what they are planning to use it for. If, just to put a wild example out there, Guam is flattened by a nuclear explosion next week, I will be the first person to call it a false flag.

There is every reason to believe that the pervasively evil US war machine would do such a thing in order to manufacture support for its securing geopolitical dominance on China’s border, and there is no reason to believe that Kim Jong Un would spontaneously do such a thing. There is no mental illness in the DSM which is both hereditary and geared specifically toward unprovoked nuclear attacks; what they’ve been saying Kim Jong Il will do is now what they’re saying Kim Jong Un will do, and it makes no sense whatsoever. Do not believe these people.

Donald Trump is not a member of the CFRhttps://www.cfr.org/membership/
The CFR is the drawing pool for the US foreign policy DEEP STATE.
Wallstreet has no good or legitimate way to put cash flow (m3) back into the economy..
– they now resort to valuation fraud
– they now resort to lowering the interest rate (and raise it to lower it)
– they now resort to weapons wars and destruction for their money-print-loan scheme
Donald Trump was CAPTURED by the deep state upon entering office.
The foreign policy thieves want ALL THE MONEY and abslolutely do not want to spend a dime on improving America.
Essentially, the office of the President has been hijacked and Donald Trump has been kidnapped by the evil that wants to rule the planet.
The DEEP STATE orchestrated the war fraud upon Iraq, Libya, Syria and NOW THEY WANT MORE.They really dont care who else it kills, what else it destroys.

Why would Trump talk to Kim? NYT and Wapo know the answer. It’s because Kim stole the elections. In fact, at some point the guy who sold bagels to Trump on his way to work is also complicit in stealing elections.

Only one nation has used nuclear weapons as a weapon of war, bombing hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians no less.

That nation is the USA.

And Trump was only one year old.

The problem is grandiosity, and the corruption of power, whether in North Korea or the United States. But the worst violator in terms of potential nuclear madness is demonstrably the culture of America itself, not Donald Trump specifically.

Even presidential candidate Hillary Clinton toyed with the idea of a Syrian no-fly zone, dangerously risking easily-escalating Russian confrontation. It’s a tradition for Americans to be trigger-happy and violently stupid, a tradition Trump is embodying rather timidly compared to many of his predecessors and some of his contemporaries.

He is absolutely mad, and of course gets a crazy when he looks back americas nuclear capability , but he forgotten that many nuclear capable powers will not sit idle and watch as america gets beyond its boots and combat tests its arsenals ,,,,,,, and who the hell wll allow ICBMs to travel their airspace carrying nuclear warheads or international airspace,,,,,,,, when they activate before they strike tell trump that he wll also meet (fire and fury) and nato wll be on their own

ok. my turn.
accepting that you have any valid criticism hiding in your smoke&mirror criticism, one can also conclude that giving israel $38 billion MORE of American citizen productivity at the point of a gun in some congressional dark alley or for a toilet room blowjob, the US will soon be in so broke and decrepit, defending the robber israel will become impossible.

I could provide numerous examples of the logical fallacies you’ve managed to cram into your breathtakingly lazy complaint about nonexistent logical fallacies, but I’ve got more important things to do and so do you: reading Edward Corbett’s *Classical Rhetoric for the Modern Student*, for example. Feel free to memorize that book so that you can avoid exhibiting the very flaws you claim to identify next time you want to smear a competent reporter.

I would submit this. North Korea has announced it would attack the U.S. as soon as it had the ability to do so, ever since the cease fire went in to effect. They have used the war games the U.S., South Korea and Japan do every year as justification to attack, if they so desired. Regardless who is President, North Korea would still have nuclear capable missiles. With regard to diplomacy, they have always just ignored any agreements or sanctions. The only solution that seems plausible is if China and/or Russia threatens the North with military action, forcing them to realize they need to do something different.

What if Mango Mussolini decides to send some manner of projectile over the DMZ and then North Korea decides to say, “Oops, looks like your attack caused all of our country’s nuclear reactors and spent fuel rod pools to lose all their coolant and the crews are too afraid of your attacks to go near the sites…”

What are you gonna do then? It would make Three Mile, Chernobyl, and Fukushima combined, look insignificant by a huge margin. Talk about a refugee crisis. It would dwarf the current ones exponentially and only get worse as the globe is slowly irradiated.

Very interesting: reactors as strategic weapons. They don’t require complex guidance or delivery systems, and they’re already a threat-in-being. Assuming Kim only pulled a Rick Perry (Oops) on a couple of his East coast stations, the Korean peninsula could receive minimal exposure compared to Japan and the Pacific.

I welcome Trump’s crazy talk. Trump is saying more directly and just as equally what Clinton, Obama, Bush and their neocon warmongers say with more “polite language”. Maybe just maybe people will come to the point where they realized that the polite talk of neocons like Clinton and Obama are just as vile and with even worse results so far than what Trump has done (If the author was pissing in his pants over what Trump, then he must have totally shit in his pants at what the last two presidents have done). The neocon warmongers say crap like “all options are on the table” which has resulted in what? The mass destruction of Syria, Libya, Iraq, and Afghanistan. When Hillary gave her speech to Brookings last year, she was dripping with vile and violence practically promising to find a way to bomb Iran. But damn, she was according to the chickenhawks, “muscular” and nobody apparently paniced. The deaths that have resulted from American polite talk has exceed the Rwandan genocide as a point of reference.

I did an interesting thing. I put the phrase “all options on the table” into the google translation machine and output to bunches of languages. I re-translated those phrases, and dang it, this is what I got about what people around the world hear at American nice talk: “We will kill you. We will kill your families and destroy your country. Have a nice day.”

Then, while you have Honest Abe Foxman or Jonathan Greenblattgoldmansteinberglcohensky on the line, ask them if there is any correlation between the ADL spying scandal of 1993, and today’s mass surveillance state.

Maybe one of those high powered “human rights” people who make a “World of Defference” possible can put some resources together to investigate that other group of blackmailers and slanderers who operate outside the laws of civil society- the Law Enforcement Intelligence units(LEIU’s).

And Kaitlyn Jenner is really a woman. Beam me up Scotty and book me a Bed and Breakfast in Pyongyang for my next family vacation:)) (This is called sarcastic humor to make share my opposite point of view using the absurd as my messaging vehicle) Thank you

Thank you for a sensible article. I really hope Trump will use some sense in how he deals with this. With all the lies, it’s very difficult to believe that this North Korea crisis is not a made up one. The only people it helps is the current party in power in the US. It’s hard to believe the convenient timing of it! Maybe it’s all real but I cannot tell truth from lies.

Kim Jong-Un is to the US as Trump is to the rest of the world. However, the US has actually DONE the unthinkable twice and North Korea only THREATENED. Trump’s escalating threats of preemptively nuking North Korea are doubtless the subject of intense discussions between the generals and leadership of Russia and China, who are considering whether a preemptive strike against the USA is necessary to save the planet.
Americans should be very afraid. White House Comment Line. 202-456-1111
Switchboard: 202-456-1414

Shock Therapy for the American Idi-ocracy, it’s the only they way to stop it. I can understand why the entire world is very tired of American hypocrisy and its purchased/democratically elected mentally ill moron for a President. Sadly, the charade and spectacle will continue for a while longer, made in the U.S.A.

Expect a false flag soon to justify the next war. It’s not our elected officials who are mad. The deciders are the unelected Pentagon and CIA warmongers who are eagerly orchestrating the events. North Korea is the excuse, but China is the Deep State’s real target. By nuking North Korea, China will suffer from fallout. China will be taught a lesson for allying with Russia.

And you think the Chinese don’t know that? By the way there is only a river who limit the NK – Chinese border, no matter what happen in NK will provoke issues in China, that’s why the US should be careful about throwing nuclear bombs in NK, also SK, Japan would be affected, and probably a large part of China sea.

I wonder what a self selecting group of psychiatrists and psychologists would have made of the words and actions of the founder of a dogma with more than a billion adherents, some of whom shout out to their deity as they slice off the heads of human beings?

History is replete with leaders whose actions and statements would be considered pathological to self selecting groups of psychiatrists and psychologists. I can think of a founder of a religion whose actions and statements were even more insane than anything Trump has executed to date. I believe you’re familiar with his teachings, Mr. Hasan. I believe those teachings once prompted you to declare that non-muslims were akin to cattle. Trump may well be a nut-job, but he has a long way to go before he surpasses the rantings of muhammad. Mad being the operative syllable. God only knows what devastation he would have wrought had he had access to nuclear weapons.

Dr. Strangeloves abound, apparently. Trump, Hillary Clinton, Kim Jong-un, just a few off the top of my head. The choice between Trump and Clinton in the election regarding potential for nuclear war was war with Russia (Cliinton) or war with China and/or North Korea (Trump). While there is no excuse for the psychopathic rhetoric coming out of the White House, make no mistake that Clinton’s past actions & attitude (Libya and Iraq) and her insistence on a no-fly zone over Syria would have created an equally volatile nuclear danger involving Russia. Frightening and discouraging state of affairs, really.

However, a study done a few years ago showed that none of the people in the U.S. military who would have to physically launch nuclear weapons would not be willing to do so upon receiving those orders. So we have to hang our hopes on the sanity of those people, because our politicians have totally lost it, and I don’t just mean Trump.

Well, if you consider a war- and human rights criminal who is mainly responsible for the destruction of Libya and the deaths of thousands of people there to be sane, we have different definitions of that word. Clinton is a neoliberal war monger psychopath who, with her insistence on a no-fly zone over Syria, was willing to risk a confrontation with Russia that could have ended in a nuclear war. She is definitely a Dr. Strangelove.

I didn’t mention Putin and have no opinion on his sanity, because I don’t know enough about him or what he’s done. He certainly has an oversized ego that has helped him stay in power for so long, but that alone doesn’t make him a Dr. Strangelove like the others I named.

Wow! I really thought that this article was satire when I started reading it. I am not familiar with the author but I can only guess that his politics are “progressive” (read communist). Let’s break this entire article down to a few simple points and see if it still makes as much sense.

1. A dictator that has proven numerous times that brutality, murder etc.. is standard operating procedure for his regime has acquired nuclear weapons and the ability to deliver that nuclear payload to a large percentage of the planet is less of a threat to the world than the President of the United States.

2. Immediate and decisive response to the previously mentioned dictators threats against the USA are inappropriate and should be restrained.

3. The President of the United States is more delusional than a dictator that believes and enforces the belief in the population under his control that he is in fact a GOD!

4. Considering a nuclear response to a nuclear threat is unprecedented.

None of these statements make any sense at all, yet this line of thinking seems to be the entire basis of this article.

The simple facts are we have a proven “MAD MAN” with newly acquired nuclear weapons and the ability to deploy them and unleash their fury on the world. We can simply not allow this situation to escalate. The days of paying off our enemies needs to end. It’s time we reassert ourselves as the last remaining world power.

Now I am in no way suggesting that our knee jerk reaction to an escalating nuclear threat should be to “drop the BOMB”. However it is important to make sure that the enemy knows that option has not been removed from the table.

For all you humanitarians out there, do a little research in to how the average N. Korean citizen lives and tell me that you are OK turning a blind eye to the situation in N. Korea. I am so sick and tired of bleeding heart liberals wanting to stick their nose in everyone’s business telling them how to live their lives and run their businesses in the name of equality, human rights etc… but only if those humans are black, gay, or some other organized group (with the freedom to organize) that likes to make a lot of noise… while ignoring the basic human rights of those that really don’t have a voice.

N. Korea needs to be bombed in to the stone age in order to protect the world and more importantly to protect the people of N. Korea that have been oppressed for so long they don’t even know they are being oppressed. Will their be some civilian casualties in the process? The unfortunate answer is yes. However, we have no way of knowing how many casualties their are every day we choose not to handle the problem.

Donald Trump is extremely direct in his response and reaction to situations like this. While we may not be accustomed to a President that isn’t afraid to speak his mind it does make him unstable in any way shape or form. Wanting to understand what his options are from diplomacy to nuclear weapons is the sign of a responsible leader not a lunatic on a mission of destruction.

Quite simply the cry baby liberals need to grow up and understand that every situation doesn’t have a peaceful and happy resolution. Not all parties involved in a dispute can sit down in a room and hash out their differences. The N. Korean situation is a prime example. Sometimes making the unpopular decision to deal with a problem using force immediately is the best option overall.

Consider how long it took us to get involved in WWII. What if we didn’t wait so long? How many lives were lost and could have been potentially saved had the US not waited so long to get involved in the war?

Donald Trump is doing the job he was elected to do and part of that job is to remove threats to the country. It’s no matter if those threats come from horrible economic policies, terrorism or a maniac dictator with nukes.

My grandparents generation had a saying “My country, right or wrong!” This used to upset me greatly as I considered it an affront to the total concept of the Constitution. As I got older I realized that this simple saying carried a much larger message. It doesn’t mean “My Government, right or wrong!” It means we stand together in solidarity as a population. No matter who you voted for or what your political leanings happen to be we are all Americans first. The best analogy I can use is two brothers that fight like cats and dogs but either one would take a bloody nose in defense of the other. That is what we need to do as Americans. We can fight with each other as much we like but when it comes to an external conflict we need to stand together and fight together.

Sorry for the ramble but I am just so tired of allowing the enemy to use or division against us. I can’t be the only one that sees this.

There is some appeal to this approach, but be wary: what the media doesn’t mention is that North Korea has long possessed an effective *biological* deterrent in addition to its much-vaunted conventional army. They recruited a lot of the Soviet Biopreparat and reputedly were working on things like a virus with pieces of Ebola spliced into smallpox … twenty years ago.

And I’m sorry, but as much as the “right or wrong” rhetoric seems like the right thing … the celebrity dingbats in charge don’t inspire confidence. I can easily imagine Trump trading away 500 state of the art nuclear weapons for 20,000 doses of vaccine to hand out to all the people who matter. The rest of us would be on our own. The last heroic human act might be if somebody gobbles a bottle of ethidium bromide and a batch of archived viruses and at least manages to mutate up a vaccine resistant strain before he dies … to spread the wealth more evenly.

I think if we want to “fight” the North Koreans, it will be a matter of boiling the frog. A few of their nuclear physicists find naked drone’s eye photos of family members being dropped as centerfolds in anti Kim propaganda. A few bundles of cash or ration cards or whatever matters over there will get dropped to eager peasant hands weekly, or planted near the houses of minor party officials’ families by drone, forcing an tiresome and endless parade of public executions. Every North Korean they execute is one less we have to kill — that will be the mind-set.

And he is surrounded by Neo-con and Neo-lib’s let’s not forget. Just want to point out that most of your sources are owned by those folks. I worry also about how far they would push him. Entities within the Deep State may use dangerous “theories” as manipulation.
I think he says whatever he thinks will make him look strong or smart in the moment, usually backfiring. He doesn’t wear a robotic mask.
Hope someone in his camp has a pragmatic worldview. I am worried, wish the other side of things was not malignant as well.

Have a better alternative? I think Washington, DC is a “dangerous mental illness”. Running a country as though it is not filled with people, but corporate entities that need representation in return for a seat at the 1%’s table and $$$’s.

There’s the “Mr. Robot” theory… hackers are the truth tellers , then something like Iman Awan happens. He get’s arrested and I truly believe that if Trump was truly wanting to brutalize his enemies Hillary, DNC, D.W.S.etc.,this malignancy, it would DESTROY them. Here’s the rub… it would lead everywhere…dirty big secrets stored in private hands. Blowing up the Russian show gets the Media proves their bullshit but too many gov’t casualties…20 possible H.O.R.’s paying off Pakastani Nat’L’s to store their secrets…Brennan leads to FBI…Congress..Clinton Foundation…
In answer to your question, I have no idea.

Reported by Gordan Chang when the US looked weak in 1960s NK struck hard they grabbed the US navy’s Puebelo from international waters I 1968’and tortured the crew killing one. The Norks downed a US navey EC-121 reconnaissance plane the following year in international airspace 31 killed. Kim Jong Un his hopes after having nuke abilities he will attempt to black mail Washington in hopes of breaking US alliance with South Korea, force out 28,000 American service personal and ultimately destroy their state. Gordan Chang goes on to say, Kim and family unification of Korean nation under his ruling. Therefore the NK could start a chain of events that lead to conflict and perhaps the worlds first nucular exchange. I found this article fascinating, and puts How complex the situation is

And the consequences of 34 Americans murdered aboard the USS Liberty by another nation 8 June 1967 were what? $38 billion recently, billions before, threats against American protesters and freedom of speech, illegal wars, etc etc. Maybe Americans are getting used to being willing victims. And what is the answer to fixing that? Picking on a country that just wants to be left alone. What sort of condescending concession prize is that!

Trump may be a twit by OUR standards, but he’s a downright saint by North Korean standards. Articles like this nonsense, just cast a shadow of shame on the Intercept for having writers and editors so blinded by partisan rage, that they’re willing to overlook minor things like genocide to try to score political points. Seriously – who the hell is supposed to take you jokers seriously when you write crap like this?

You made my day thank you I go to various articles to view usually the most ignorant comments and no substance just anti trump talk it’s refreshing to see not all have lost all perspective as to the issues at hand

The DPRK defense plan calls for a strike on Guamhttps://kcnawatch.co/
not on the bases in SK, Japan or Philippines. Why is that? NK obviously does not want a larger war.

REMEMBER VIETNAM.
The US lost their invasion of Vietnam. What makes the US think that an invasion of NK could be a win? NK has a physical border with China. NK is a good buffer zone for China from US aggression. China is uncomfortable with nearby US bases. China would not like NK to lose a conflict with the US. If China was smart, they would have provided NK a blueprint for mutual success. China is not stupid.

AND THEN..
A strike on Guam is what China would do. If Guam is hit by NK, it’s game on. If NK is struck by the US, it’s game on. Immediately that would involve SK, Japan, Philippines. China wants the US out of their part of the world anyway. China wants Taiwan/Formosa back. A US strike on NK is probably “too close to home” for China. China would react.

AND THEN..
Dumping the dollar. China would cut ties to the US and the US economy as well. A dollar dump would become a bumrush to the dumping festival. Even if the US prevailed in a nuclear war by some preposterous way, the US would lose the economic war.

ALONG CAME RUSSIA.
Russia and China are partners in a new economy already – including a settlement house. China and Russia have already agreed to establish themselves as a reserve currencies and are backed by gold. Russia’s block chain program is in the beta stage while the US is still trapped by the wallstreet con game of valuation fraud and loan sharking.

THE HARD WAY.
This US class of elected and appointed government whores and thieves do not learn, they react to the demands of their foreign policy and wallstreet pimps. Until the people of America vote in a third party, they will remain the cattle of the corporat cult.

Twice a day, Trump’s flunkies put together a folder full of nothing but stuff that makes Trump look good. These are govt. employees getting paid a lot of money to put together an ego file for Trump. Only dictators have such a thin skin and massive need to feed their massive ego. Notice how corporate media sources keep hyping that Preibus and Spicer would FIGHT, mind you, FIGHT for the HONOR of giving this file IN PERSON to Trump. Watch Trump’s Il Duce body language. This is a mentally ill dictator.

Kim Jung Un is a dictator. Trump is a dictator. Can you blame the North Koreans for not trusting us with Trump as President? While North Korea is a dictatorship, the reality is is that the rest of the world has diplomatic relations with them. If you really want to stop North Korea from having nuclear weapons, wouldn’t it make sense to establish an embassy in Pyongyang? Why do we need the Swedes to do all of our work for us?

Like it or not. But there are a lot of people that want to do business with Kim Jung Un. China. Our Western allies. Google CEO Eric Schmidt and Bill Richardson have been there many times. Why? Because they see a market and want their cut. Now, does that make them evil for wanting to do business with a dictatorship that has prison camps? If you think that, both are laughing in your face.

Re: prison camps. The US has the biggest prison population in the world. The majority are African American and Hispanic. How is that different from a prison camp?

The fact that you can even compare a U.S. prison to North Korea’s concentration camps is evidence that the U.S. has been forfeiting its opportunities to get cinema-quality footage from little surveillance drones and SHOW THE WORLD what those camps are like. The U.S. has a lot of “hostile but not war” things it can and should be doing to retaliate for nuclear threats and counterfeit currency. That would really be the answer I’d like to see for the crisis.

Wnt : Tom said prison camps, not concentration camps. Maybe in your mind there is no difference, but, there is. Americans, especially with their expensive “privatized” prison systems, hardly have any ground on which to brag.

Terrible article. To compare the president of the United States to a psychotic dictator is extremely unprofessional and sad (probably why I have never heard of http://www.theintercept.com)! I don’t understand how you could think Kim Jong-un is not a “madman.” Uninformed and Dumb!

I don’t trust Trump, no. Unfortunately, North Korea keeps making threats, and so some threats back are in order. I mean, much of how the U.S. got into World War II had to do with Japan thinking that they could just bomb the crap out of our Navy and we’d sort of shuffle off and say “oh darn” and that would be the end of it. It’s dangerous (both for the U.S. and its opponents) to appear more passive than the reality dictates.

The reality is and remains that the U.S. killed off 10-20% of the North Korean population in the 1950s — and if North Korea nukes Seoul or even blasts it into oblivion with artillery, that could easily happen again. More importantly, if North Korea nukes San Francisco or even Washington DC (despite some approval from the peanut gallery), their casualties will be … five to ten times worse. I mean, if North Korea had done it while Obama was in office he would have done (perhaps a bit more quietly) what Trump will do — grab a copy of the Geneva Conventions and the Convention Against Torture and any other relevant Conventions and tear it up and burn the little pieces in a pile on camera, formally abrogating them before launching an all out response that would begin with nuclear weapons and end with death-drones patiently hunting down and exterminating anyone who tried to get a piece of farming equipment moving. The remaining country would get salted with so many mines that several species of birds would not survive their annual migrations, let alone anything that has to reach its perch on foot.

Civilization will not survive a nuclear war — but the U.S. will. And if a president, however sucky, wants to avoid that outcome, he should help the North Koreans to envision it in advance.

And we got to his point “how” exactly? Via mature, practiced, proven rhetoric and diplomacy perhaps? And now Trump has “ruined” all this wondrous progress?

I’m going to go out on a limb here and conjecture that it was the politics of disingenuous, self-serving, globalist, amoral dimwits that got us into this, and more of the same would just compound the disaster.

And, what does his election say about the liabilities of a democracy? After all, THE PEOPLE CHOSE HIM. It gives pause when one remembers that Germany’s Weimar Republic was also a democracy. Will lightening strike twice? If so, Trump is the lightening rod.

Ah, the whither democracy issue. There is no solution as far as I can tell, and I’ve been researching, discussing, and thinking about this problem for decades. It boils down to this:

Most people have neither the aptitude nor the proclivity to make decisions about how society should be run. Therefore, it would be best if people like Buddhist monks and other more evolved types ran societies. The problems with this scenario are that 1) those types of people have much smaller egos due to being more evolved, so they don’t want to run societies; and 2) the more aggressive, less evolved people with bigger egos would throw the more evolved people out of power.

So, we’re left with democracy, which as Churchill said is a horrible system but still better than the rest. The only other choices are authoritarian systems where people in power make decisions favorable to themselves and their friends at the expense of everyone else.

If you come up with a solution I’d love to hear it. I’ve been trying to find one for a long time.

The same propaganda laid against Saddam Hussein is in place and most influential Americans are keep mute. Anyone who stands up against US imperialism is dubbed dictator, mad man, monster or killer of his own people. Donald Trump should not have the nuclear code because of his mental instability, Period!

The media coverage of the North Korea nuclear story is a classic example of inside-the-box siloed thinking, on almost every front. For example:

(1) China cannot convince North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles any more than the United States can convince Israel to give up its nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles. Israel has what are called deuterium-tritium boosted fission weapons; these are small enough to fit on top of a ballistic missile. Supposedly, that’s what North Korea has also developed (not like they’re talking about it). The China-North Korea relationship is almost identical to the U.S.-Israel relationship, but that basic point can’t be discussed in the U.S. media.

(2) Any kind of military conflict in the region would not be limited to the region because North Korea, South Korea, and Japan all have nuclear reactors. Loaded with fuel. With more ‘spent fuel’ in cooling ponds. Hundreds and hundreds of tons. Enough to make the kind of radioactive globe-circling cloud featured in “On The Beach”. I don’t know whether it’s because of allegiane to corporate interests involved in the electricty sector or not, but nobody wants to discuss this. Nevertheless, torching a nuclear reactor with a nuclear weapon is basically the worst-case industrial nuclear disaster imaginable. Massive radioactive fallout circling the planet. Where’s the discussion of this in our pathetic media?

(3) The whole “madman” rhetoric sounds like a replay of “Saddam Hussain the madman” stories ran back in 2002 or 2003, about how Saddam would happily give Al Qaeda a nuclear weapon as soon as he got one because he was a madman, etc. In reality, Kim & Netanyahu and Trump are all about the same on that scale – more calculated than crazy. There’s also the probability that Trump is likely playing a game of trying to whip up public support by blustering about a war, especially after his many legislative failures. Notice how Bill Clinton started bombing Yugoslavia when the Monica Lewinsky story broke? Not the only explanation, but that’s U.S. Presidential thinking, isn’t it?

(4) Trump is not exactly the only domestic threat; recall that Hillary Clinton wanted a no-fly zone over Syria, she thought shooting down Russian jets was acceptable policy, which could have led to major military conflict with Russia, including nuclear weapons. Idiotic foreign policy moves are Washington’s signature these days, on both sides of the aisle. Sanctions for everyone! Plus aggressive blustering rhetoric. Does America have a roid rage problem?

It’ll probably all blow over. . . But if you see that bright flash, well, just curl up in a ball under the nearest concrete structure. . . And take the opportunity to kiss your ass goodbye.

great comment….it’s ridiculous that for context readers need to go to some of us in the comments section.

Here’s one: The always interesting @ArmyStrang pointed out on twitter today that heated rhetoric on North Korea breaks out in April and August generally, which just happens to be when the US and South Korea do joint training exercises!!

This is the best online comment section I’ve ever seen. The rest are mainly name-calling by right wing and/or reactionary assholes. The information in the comment section here is often equal to that of the article, sometimes superior to it.

We almost had that kind of “level 8 nuclear disaster” with Fukushima. But Fukushima supposedly didn’t even leave traces of radioactivity in the U.S. food supply, so I’m not sure NK nuking Japanese nuclear reactors would. And, well … from a seat in North America, one thinks “far better the Japanese, who aren’t even a military asset, than us!” So while the U.S. of course needs to secure ITS OWN nuclear reactors, I’m not sure the ones over there count as a huge “On The Beach” threat, at least not if only the 2, no 20, no 60 North Korean weapons are the only threat.

The North Korean bioweapons are by far the most worrisome aspect to me. Because bioweapons are so freaking fun, there’s so much creativity involved. I mean, suppose North Korea decides to spray the DMZ and nearby parts of the peninsula with artillery rounds that disburse tularemia in mid-air (a classic “disabling but only 1% lethal” biological weapon) Then they march in their troops (they have compulsory vaccination in NK … for who knows what) and seize land and make off with gold from bank vaults and stuff. What does the U.S. do? They ordinarily threaten to escalate biological to nuclear, but in this case, probably not. My guess in this scenario was … something like the thrips the U.S. allegedly dropped on Cuba. Starve them out. But if the U.S. biological (nay, “herbicidal”, no worse than the open plan to attack Columbia with Fusarium!) attack is successful enough, and the North Koreans are starving, then what happens? Does NK escalate to nuclear? Or a more potent bioweapon like “Ebolapox” that can spread around the world? There are so many possibilities!

The pre-dawn FBI raid on Paul Manafort’s home within the past weeks is said to be an exercise to put Manafort in such legal jeopardy (prison) that he will be willing to “make a deal” by singing against Trump and his family to avoid that long prison sentence.

I am very worried about Trump deciding to “wag the dog” with North Korea. He needs a BIG distraction right about now, especially since it appears even his own party is against him!

He claims to be a “Christian”? If he really were he would be TALKING to Kim Jong-un.

Even a man as supposedly deranged as The Donald must be able to see that the only countries the United States has attacked are weak countries like Vietnam, Afghanistan, Nicaragua, Libya, Syria etc.

No wonder Kim wants nukes! For the same reason Israel has them!

To think that Trump made the ultimate deal with the American voters proclaiming himself the candidate of peace and no more regime changes makes me wonder about how seriously deranged American voters are for having bought his B.S.

When you’re POTUS and you don’t know what tact, diplomacy & de-escalation is, you’re pretty unfit for the job. That is clear to billions of people on the planet, except for some nutheads still defending the nuthead-in-chief ‘s reasoning.

I have said it before, I named 2 Air Force programs “Have Trump” and “Bernie” in the early eighties.

I have the solution to the CIA’s Kryptos “riddle in a riddle”.
“People to create a safer freer world and surely there is no better place than Berlin the meeting place of East and West”.

Doubly ironic, considering the Intercept has pushed the far-right McCarthyite Russia scare, which of course increases our chances of war with a nuclear power. I suggest this is mad, especially when talking about a nuclear powerhouse:

“If you look at Facebook, the vast majority of the news items posted were fake. They were
connected to, as we now know, the thousand Russian agents.”

– Crooked Hillary

Even more ironic, when we consider Hillary’s ties to Russia. As Secretary of State, Hillary received millions in bribes to approve the transfer of 20% of our uranium assets to Russia:

What is it with the cowardly morons in key elected and appointed govt positions?
These so-called people seem to be a bunch of former losers with major self-worth deficits who, when guaranteed a federal job, suddenly feel that now is the time they can be someone’s hero and claim their worth no matter the risk. GW Bush – a serious imbecile who decisionated that invading a sovereign country under false pretenses was a job for heros. BH Obama – another serious imbecile who decided that pre-emptive compromising was the key to success. HR Clinton – a very serious imbecile – figured that turning the soul of America over to wallstreet and herself over to the CFR was the smart thing to do.

And now DP Trump, a perhaps imbecile who cannot see past his own nose, gets rope-a-doped by the foreign policy criminal enterprise that wants all the money and sees getting America nuked is an opportunity to distract US from rebuilding a country that will need serious wallstreet scammer loans once the bombs start dropping.

THIS IS NOTHING SHORT OF AN IMBECILE’S GAME OF CHICKEN by a bunch of losers in congress, the courts and the executive branch who had ambitions to escape living in regular everyday America because the country and people aren’t good enough for them – because we are actually the prey they lie to and feed upon.

I thought this was written by NYT or WaPo as another Trump hit piece. Big difference between rhetoric and actions here. However, I could definitely see more extreme rhetoric by Trump having a more positive impact on China which have not been taking this seriously. There could be a method to this madness. If you believe Trump is capable of pushing the button, then clearly that is great leverage on China who has allot more to lose.

@Hasan-this piece is journalistic DIARRHEA. I read to where you referenced people making comments about Trumps mental health as if they were diagnoses after a thorough evaluation of the President in a clinical setting, then I flushed it. I never thought The Intercept would peddle shit?

I don’t get the Blame Trump thing because I do not believe in the Great Man theory of history. Men do not and cannot act alone in the writing of history, they are always empowered and aided by others. Hitler had many admirers and democratic voters along with a horde of vicious sidekicks and supporters and a whole army of rational and well-trained men at his disposal, along with a whole host of international helpers. Genghis Khan had a very capable family and allies. The likes of Mao and Stalin and Pol Pot would’ve been snuffed out in an instance without a whole host of skilled and capable other individuals helping them along the way. Trump is the same. He cannot be blamed for amassing an unnecessary and insanely vast arsenal of nuclear weapons that every intelligent mind knows are a useless and pointless red herring in the politico-economic imperial strategies of the USA. He cannot be blamed for the gang of wannabes and chancers that ride his coat tails. He cannot be blamed for the scheming fear-mongering games of NATO’s redundant military tin-pot soldiers and war pig generals. He cannot be blamed for the political machinations of pathetic dynastic dictatorial regimes in China and Russia and Saudi Arabia that cling to their undeserved billions by employing the worst mercenary monsters in the world as security. He cannot be blamed for the juggernaut monstrocity that is the American Military Intelligence – the CIA, NDA, Pentagon, and all the other players in the opaque world of lies and counter lies that are all bluffs employed to keep control of financial systems, big business, complex graft schemes and enormous tax pools. And he cannot be blamed for the Democrats denying Bernie Sanders the right to stand aginst him and undoubtedly win so that he never could ever come close to being the President. And finally he cannot be blamed for the American public democratically electing a clearly vain and idiotic man-child with obvious serious women issues and a tendency to run endless vendettas against his perceived enemies into a post which puts him in charge of the most insanely dangerous war machine the world has ever known manned by pathetic egotistical Americans who believe they are Exceptional and destined to rule the world.

I bet the nukes aren’t even plugged in. They all enjoy being greedy lazy spoilt little c*nts too much. It is time everyone who is being robbed of their taxes and their freedoms to stand up and call their bluff because this is all just bullshit and I and many others are sick of these f*cking wankers running the show. F*ck them all to Hell and no return.

It’s true that MANY are responsible, not just people like Trump and Hitler. But people like Trump and Hitler are and were in special positions of power and privilege, so they have greater responsibilities. And, people in power like them are the only ones who could create such enormous destruction and suffering.

So while Trump is not the only one with blame here, he certainly is to blame.

Shit like this destroys the credibility or The Intercept. It’s one thing to oppose, despise or even hate the President, but it’s just intellectually lazy to say most of the crap in this piece. The only weaker argument is a bunch of shrinks analyzing Trump from his speeches. (I hope their collective malpractice insurance is up to date.) I don’t think most pundits believe the most outrageous crap they spout, it’s meant to rev up the base. The only problem is that people with lesser abilities tend to act on this nonsense and believe it. And I really hope you don’t.

“The same cannot be said of The Donald. Think I’m being unfair? In February, a group of psychiatrists, psychologists and social workers wrote to the New York Times “that the grave emotional instability indicated by Mr. Trump’s speech and actions makes him incapable of serving safely as president.” In April, another group of mental health experts told a conference at Yale University’s School of Medicine that Trump was “paranoid” and “delusional” and referred to the president’s “dangerous mental illness.””

The logic of North Korea’s survival strategy is an important point to make. But the above cherry-picked tidbit destroys the credibility of the rest of the article.

Not only are ‘remote diagnoses’ usually wrong, none of the psychologists and psychiatrists who signed on to the letter have actually examined Trump personally, and if they had, doctor-patient confidentiality would legally prohibit them from disclosing anything.

Do you have a group of professionals willing to state that Trump is sane? When choosing from one of hundreds vs none, “cherry-picking” is hardly the correct expression. If even one “study” was done and held as proof of sanity, that, indeed, would be called “cherry-picking”.

Evidently, you did not read my comment in detail, and/or do not understand how these things work.

Any actual professional will know that a proper examination and diagnosis (medical or psychological) has to be made in person, the details of which are protected by something called “physician-patient confidentiality”. This means that the physician is prohibited, on pain of losing their license or suffering criminal penalties, from disclosing the details of their interactions with their patient except when complying with a lawful subpoena.

Not one of the so-called “professionals” who signed that letter has ever personally examined Trump, and if any of them had, the mere act of signing an open letter “diagnosing” him with anything would violate the aforementioned physician-patient confidentiality and bring an end to their professional careers.

This is what makes your demand that I come up with the names of any professionals who will declare that Trump is sane so utterly absurd. To your demand, I answer: I don’t need to. Whatever personality disorder Trump may or may not have is between him and his physician, should he choose to consult one (as any actual professional with a sense of professional integrity will tell you).

As a histrionic act of public virtue signalling, the open letter signed by these “professionals” is a tragic sign of how deeply despair at Clinton’s electoral defeat has affected some people. But as a “professional diagnosis”, it isn’t worth the op-ed column in which it was printed. This for the same reasons why a doctor cannot diagnose you with bubonic plague on the basis of a video of you coughing and scratching your armpits.

Trump is (among other things) a novice at government, and a loudmouth to boot, but I would prefer we not take the Soviet approach of “diagnosing” people with mental disorders because we don’t like them.

It would be funny if some of them DID go on the record and made it official. Can you picture the news if Trump ended up in a 72-hour psych hold, cooling his heels in a padded room at Bellevue? If there were any circuses left, they would fold their tents and concede defeat for all time.

Perhaps that is why there are now 3 military officers surrounding Trump. Will they refuse orders? Or a military coup? The Congress can actually decide, WITHOUT any long impeachment process, that the President is ‘unfit’ and can be removed, even overnight. But of course that would take a lot of Republicans and its not going to happen right now.

I have not been so disturbed by anything emotionally, even during the cold war. Both sides – except for Curtis LeMay and his deep state buddies who ultimately killed Kennedy – understood that going nuclear was off the table.

“I have not been so disturbed by anything emotionally, even during the cold war.”

Really? The Cuban Missile Crisis almost ended life on Earth with total nuclear war. Either you aren’t old enough to have been around for that, or you had no clue what was happening. And there were other extremely dangerous situations during the Cold War that were not as well-known. This is a joke by comparison, because Trump is a clown (albeit an evil one) and because it’s unlikely that the people who’d have to carry out orders to launch nukes would not do so.

[[[ Most nonproliferation experts — as well as former President Jimmy Carter and a number of former Pentagon and State Department officials, both Republican and Democrat — agree that the brutal and murderous Kim, for all his bluster, is not irrational or suicidal but is bent on preserving his regime and preventing a U.S. attack. Nuclear weapons are a defensive, not an offensive, tool for the North Korean leadership — which, as Bill Clinton’s defense secretary William Perry observed on Fox News in April, may be “ruthless and…reckless” but “they are not crazy.”

You couldn’t be more wrong. You’ve obviously never heard one of Manson’s interviews. He seems to be one of those people who fell off the path of enlightenment into insanity, which can be a very long fall.

“The same cannot be said of The Donald. Think I’m being unfair? In February, a group of psychiatrists, psychologists and social workers wrote to the New York Times “that the grave emotional instability indicated by Mr. Trump’s speech and actions makes him incapable of serving safely as president.” In April, another group of mental health experts told a conference at Yale University’s School of Medicine that Trump was “paranoid” and “delusional” and referred to the president’s “dangerous mental illness.””

Mehdi, you’re not being unfair….you’re being ridiculous.

Trump MAY be crazy, but to keep things in perspective:
the head of the APA helped develop non-lethal torture methods along side the CIA. To cite a psychological diagnosis by those same people ***who have never once had contact with the patient*** is absurd and dangerous.

With all due respect to the psychiatrists of the New York Times, I wonder if they can distinguish between whether Mr. Trump is crazy, or just pretending to be crazy. Psychiatrists can be fooled, just like anyone else, or maybe a little easier than anyone else, since they are predisposed – by the nature of their work and from simple self interest – to believe that everyone is crazy.

However, if Mr. Trump can convince the North Koreans that he is crazy, that may facilitate making a deal, which is what Mr. Trump originally promised. However, I’ll check out nuclear fallout shelters at my local supermarket, just to be on the safe side.

That’s moronic and also moronic. God needs the Devil for without Sin there can be no Salvation. God, the Devil, Trump, Kim; they are all charlatans who rely on the other to justify their own greed and need for control and their madness is real and is called Megalomania. The proof is in the pudding, no need to psychiatrists or the idiot bullshit mongers at the NYT.

Between assuming he’s a sociopath and assuming he’s deftly playing a sociopath, it is in the Nation’s best interest to assume the former, not the latter, and do what we must to get rid of this unacceptable risk to our country.

I disagree. Trump is easily the most entertaining and funny president in my lifetime, even more so than Nixon. He’s a horrible person and his policies are awful, but with the possible exception of Jimmy Carter, the same can be said for the rest of them (though Kennedy SEEMED to be going in the right direction eventually and Johnson’s domestic policies were very good). He’s just more up front with his horribleness than the others were.

Nah. If all his crazy rantings were directed at NK it could be argued it was all part of some unique, never-before-seen, superhyperclever negotiating tactic.

Unfortunately, the crazy babble is commonplace w/ the Donald, and the signs that he’s a nut case show up in practically everything he says and does. It doesnt take a shrink to conclude he doesnt belong where he is.

Another sign of derangement: Thinking that a nation with 61 percent disapproval and 33 percent approval will follow an irrational leader into a nuclear war against N. Korea. Real leadership requires more than bombast rhetoric. I requires full, expansive factual arguments, and a willingness by the population to accept them with enthusiasm.